


Post contra legem Write Up

by MetaCat (OtherCat)



Category: Homestuck, Meta - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Commentary, F/M, Meta, wrap up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 07:05:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11412765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/MetaCat
Summary: A slightly expanded write up forcontra legem.a Terezi/Dave fan fic set in a Conquered Earth AU.Originally posted on my Tumblr andDreamwidthon 10-17-2013





	Post contra legem Write Up

This is by far the longest fic I've ever written. Therefore, I must blather about it.

The basic genesis of this story occurred after I saw this prompt on the homestuck kink meme homesmut:

_I just want slave Dave. That's all. I'm craving it so BADLY, someone please help me._  
  
Any pairing, or no pairing. The slavery could be sexual or otherwise. I don't care. All I ask is that whatever passes between Dave and his owner(s) is completely noncon, no dubcon or Stockholm or anything.  
  
(I am not going to say anything about fandom definitions of Stockholm Syndrome here but I am definitely thinking it.)Now, I do read slave fic! And I also read dub and noncon. They are both guilty pleasures of mine. (And I say they are guilty pleasures because a lot of the time the writer does not really think about what they're writing so the quality is kind of poor.)This is not generally the type of prompt that I would normally get an inspiration for, but when I first saw this prompt, I had been reading an excellent if depressing Rose/Kanaya slave AU _Seam by Seam_. (I highly recommend the story, though I can’t read it again because all I want to do is burn the world for Rose. This is often a feel I have when reading fic where there is essentially no hope for the character. I do not particularly like the “burn the world” feeling.) I was also reading a story called _For the Empire_ which died and I think the writer removed the story from AO3. (For the Empire was not precisely a slave AU, instead John is a sepoy soldier who if I recall correctly, gets partnered with Karkat. I was so damn sad about Dave, who I suspect was probably culled.)  
  
On top of that, there was a brilliant Dave/Terezi ask blog where Dave was a slave and served as a combination bodyguard and secretary for Terezi. (The Askblog has also disappeared. Sadness.) Another influence for this story was K.D. Wentworth and Eric Flint's _Course of Empire_. (Course of Empire was an inspiration for mostly the same reason that _For the Empire_ was an inspiration. Also, it is not a major plot point but my feels for the Bond of Ebezon may or may not be apparent in contra legem.)  
  
So I ended up with a ravening plot weasel. This ravening plot weasel of mine did not really fit the prompt, because the prompter wanted noncon and my plot bunny was yet another variation of "not like the others." (Much to my chagrin; this trope is not really handled very well usually.)  
  
I decided that the setting for this Conquered Earth AU would be sixty sweeps (130 years) after the invasion. There are still resistance groups but some of them are actually kind of terrible. You also have groups that worship the aliens and groups that try to avoid cultural contamination and so on. (I did not dwell too much on them in this fic because they were mostly non-relevant to the central story.) The type of slavery I went with was comparative to ancient Roman and Greek forms instead of the Atlantic slave trade style. It is still extremely cruddy but it is possible to have slaves who are doing skilled labor and white collar work as well as slaves who have much crappier low status jobs)  
  
My basic backstory for Dave is that he's a military schoolfeeding washout who had been re-trained as a secretarial asset. He has seen some shit and it shows.  
  
Terezi Pyrope is a Neophyte Legislacerator and at first appears to be mostly estranged from the other trolls! This is not in fact the case. Instead she is keeping a low profile while helping along Feferi's social justice platform. Our Heroine goes into a rental agency to lease an asset. Dave is brought to her attention because he is getting the snot beat out of him for being an whistle blower and losing the agency a client. It is not love at first sight, but Terezi decides that to give Dave a chance because Dave clearly has integrity!  

(There is some irony in owning a slave when you are a social justice activist. There are some very rude jokes of the American History variety that I never got around making about it. I did not make the jokes because I did not want to get flamed for them. Oh well, there's always the future.)  
  
Then I realized that she was going to end up pale for him. This very much did not meet the requirements of the prompt, so I eventually dropped the story from the kink meme. (I may also have been slightly influence to remove it due to an anonymous comment on the fic that I found very irritating.) 

This fic had a fic-baby! That is to say, someone was inspired to riff off contra legem. The story was John/Vriska, and is/was a WIP. I have slightly ambivalent feelings about the story, but I’m hesitant to critique the fic, or the world building because a lot of the ambivalence is that I don’t ship John/Vriska in that kind of power dynamic. (Or at all, really.) But especially not in a dynamic where Vriska has any actual power over John. Vriska should not be entrusted with the care of a plastic succulent, let alone a living being.

  
A few ideas I wanted to play with:

  * That humans are completely unsuited to quadrants due to brain wiring.
  * Aliens that are Alien.
  * Quadrant headcanons and how quadranting behavior fit in with the social behavior of trolls.
  * Terezi deciding that Dave is a pale mess.
  * Dave trying to figure out some very confused feelings he's having while Terezi attempts to deprogram him.
  * The slow revelation that Dave is much more messed up than he first appears.
  * Imperial Drone Headcanoning of various kinds!
  * Worldbuilding about Alternian culture.
  * Revolution!



Commentary was generally positive for this fic, though I think I upset a few commenters because I argued with their interpretation of certain situations, reactions, or original characters.  My general defense of my characters/plot direction/themes might come off as “you’re not interrogating the text from the correct perspective!” authorial defense. The author is not dead, and can’t shut up about her own writing/ideas. (Also, I am super protective of all my characters. I am the only one allowed to say Selene Marcus has her head stuck up her ass, okay.)

Writing this went very quickly but occasionally I got bogged down due to real life troubles. (I would have to say that this fic became my escape from said real life troubles.) I also had the usual moments where I was convinced that what I was writing was complete crap, and the usual bouts of insecurity. However, I would have to say I am happy with the end product.


End file.
